Karen Bridges

Teaching from the Heart

Karen Bridges
Professor of Nursing, North Campus

Asked why she chose nursing over home economics, which was her original academic plan, Professor Karen Bridges pauses to find just the right words. “My whole life is about making patients comfortable — figuring out what they need and making sure those needs are met.”

A native Floridian, Bridges earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Florida State University (FSU) and her master’s from the University of Alabama. She worked as a nurse in Orlando before teaching nursing at Pensacola Junior College and Jones College. In 1991, she joined the Florida Community College faculty at North Campus. She was a part-time nurse at St. Vincent’s Medical Center during her first four years of teaching at FCCJ.

She continues to help hundreds of patients every year, both through her students and graduates of the College’s nursing program and through her own care-giving at a local hospice facility during summers.

“Hospice is what nursing is all about,” says Bridges. “You nurse the whole family, not just the patient. You teach the family what’s going on in this process, and you help the patient manage symptoms and pain. A lot of my emphasis with students is patient teaching.”

In 2004, Bridges was honored by her peers as an Outstanding Faculty Award winner. Nursing instructor Jan Abich submitted the award nomination letter. “Karen is willing to try new and creative approaches in the classroom. I lovingly think of her as the ‘Patch Adams’ of the classroom, willing to be playful in order to achieve understanding with some very complex theory,” wrote Abich.

Bridges calls herself a visual, hands-on learner. When it’s time to teach a complicated subject, she often relies on her “prop cabinet” to help in the explanation. She’s been known to use Hershey’s kisses as glucose molecules in her instruction of diabetes.

Looking over her resume, you’ll find it’s full of professional achievements and affiliations with community and church groups. It doesn’t mention all the continuing education credits, offices held and committees served in the nursing department, presentations made to various medical groups, certification as a cancer chemotherapy provider, or her articles published in “Oncology Quarterly.”

But many of her greatest accomplishments are not on paper. These are the kind made in everyday moments when she touches a life and makes a difference. As her award nominator so aptly concluded, “Karen truly exemplifies the spirit of nursing.”

To see other students and faculty members that have been featured on the College’s home page, visit our Spotlight archive.